“I believe Her Majesty was devoted to him,” Charlotte added inconsequentially.
“To whom?” Kathleen was totally lost.
“Mr. Disraeli, my dear,” O’Neil explained. “I think Miss Pitt is teasing us.”
“I never doubted they were clever.” Adah fixed Charlotte with a bright, brittle glance. “But that does not mean we wish to have them in our homes.” She gave a convulsive little shudder, very tiny, but of a revulsion so intense as to be akin to fear.
Kathleen looked at Charlotte with apology in her eyes.
“I am sorry, Miss Pitt. I am sure Grandmama did not mean that as distastefully as it may have seemed. All sorts of people are most welcome in our house, if they are friends—and I hope you will consider yourself a friend.”
“I should like to very much,” Charlotte said quickly, grasping the chance. “It is most generous of you to ask, especially in view of my remarks, which were in less than the best of judgment, I admit. I tend to speak from the heart, and not from the head. I so enjoyed the pianist I rushed to his defense where I am sure it was quite unnecessary.”
Kathleen smiled. “I do understand,” she said softly, so her grandmother would not hear. “He momentarily transformed me onto a higher plane, and made me think of all manner of noble things. That is not entirely the composer’s art, it is his also. He gave voice to the dreams.”
“How well you put it. I shall most certainly continue your acquaintance, if I may,” Charlotte said, with sincerity as well as the desire to know more of Kingsley Blaine, and what manner of man he had been. Had he truly intended to leave this seemingly warm and impulsive woman for Tamar Macaulay, and knowing the cost that would be to him? Or had he simply been weak, and in indulging his physical passions placed himself in a situation where he could not bring himself to leave either of them? How extraordinary that two such women should have loved him so deeply. He must have had a unique charm. It was growing increasingly important that she find a way to see him as objectively as possible, through the eyes of someone not so blinded by love. Perhaps if she visited the home of Kathleen O’Neil she might have a further opportunity to speak with Prosper Harrimore. His face was shrewd, guarded. Kingsley Blaine had been the father of his grandchild, but she imagined a man such as he was would not be easily hoodwinked by charm. His eyes on Devlin O’Neil suggested an ability to stand back, an affection not without judgment. He might be the key to a less emotional view, a perception that would see danger and weakness as well.
The pianist returned and the second half of the evening’s entertainment commenced, and for its duration Charlotte forgot all about Kingsley Blaine, his family, or the death of Samuel Stafford. The passionate, lyrical, universal voice of human experience took over and she allowed herself to be swept up by it and carried wherever it took her.
Afterwards the O’Neils and the Harrimores had become engaged in conversation with other acquaintances. Prosper was deep in discussion with a man who had the portentous air of a merchant banker, and Adah was listening with acute attention to a thin, elderly woman who was holding forth at some length and would brook no interruption. Once Charlotte caught Kathleen’s eye and smiled, receiving a flash of humor and understanding in return, but other than that solitary instance, Charlotte and Clio left without further encountering them.
Micah Drummond stood in his office staring out of the window down at the street where two men were haggling over something. It was latched against the blustery evening, and the rain beginning to splash now and then against the pane, so he could not hear their voices. It all seemed far away, divorced from any reality that mattered, and of less and less importance to him. He was forced to admit, the death of Samuel Stafford was rapidly becoming the same.
He should care. Stafford had been a good man, conscientious, honorable, diligent. And even if he had not, no decent person could condone murder. His brain told him he should be outraged, and in some distant part of his mind he was furious at the arrogance of it, the destruction of a life, and the pain. But on the surface where his concentration was, all he could care about intensely was Eleanor Byam. Everything he did had value to him only as it had reference to her. He could not remove from his mind the picture of her face in all its moods, the light and shadow as she laughed, and, when the sadness returned, the memory of pain, and her loneliness now that all the world she had known had disappeared and shrunk into the lodging house in Marylebone and the few tradesmen with whom she had dealings.
He ached to be able to give her more, and yet he was perfectly sure that what he felt was not pity; indeed he found the word offensive applied to her. She had far too much courage, too much dignity for him to dare such an intimate and intrusive feeling.
And yet he was aware with an ache of pain how her life had changed.
But the most powerful emotion in him was still the longing to be with her, to share his thoughts, his ideas, the experience of the things he loved. He imagined walking across a wide field with her by his side, the smell of the dawn wind off the sea, and the clouds piled and shredded in veils of light. The loveliness of it would fill him till he could scarcely contain it, and he would turn to her, and know she saw it with the same bursting heart that he did. And in that sharing all loneliness would vanish.
It flickered through his thoughts that if Adolphus Pryce felt this same consuming emotion for Juniper Stafford, and over years, perhaps it had driven from him all sense of proportion, and ultimately of morality. But it did not remain with him long, nor form itself into coherent ideas.
Instead of being with Eleanor, he was here, in Bow Street, waiting for reports on a murder he knew he would not solve. If it was solved at all, it would be by Pitt. It would be Pitt’s anger at waste and injustice, and Pitt’s insight, helped no doubt by Charlotte’s curiosity, which would find the answer, whether Drummond was there or not.
The job had completely lost its savor for Drummond, and he realized gloomily that he was in danger of making some stupid, unnecessary error, which would spoil his reputation and close his career with shame instead of honor.
He turned from the window and strode across to the hat stand, where he picked up his hat and cane, took his coat from the peg and went out into the corridor.
“Poulteney, I’m going out. Put the reports on my desk when they come. I’ll see them in the morning. If Inspector Pitt comes back, tell him I’ll see him tomorrow.”
“Yes sir. Will you be coming back tonight, sir?”
But Drummond was already striding away and he did not register the question.
Outside he walked the short length of Bow Street and around the corner into Drury Lane, where he caught a hansom. He gave the driver Eleanor’s address, and sat back trying to compose his mind and prepare what he was going to say. He changed the words a dozen times between Oxford Street and Baker Street, but when he got out at Milton Street and paid the driver it all sounded so much less than he meant. He even considered calling another cab and going away again. But if he did, the situation would not improve. He would be no more than delaying what was for him inevitable. He must ask her, and there was nothing to be altered or gained by delaying.
The same surly maid answered the door, and when he informed her he wished to see Mrs. Byam, she conducted him with ill grace through the hallway and back to Eleanor’s private door.
“Thank you,” he said briefly, and waited while she glared at him, then turned on her heel and went.
With suddenly beating heart and dry lips he raised the knocker and let it fall.
It was several moments before he heard her steps at the far side and the handle turn, and then it swung open. It was Eleanor herself; presumably her one maid was otherwise occupied. She looked surprised to see him. For an instant there was pure pleasure in her face, then within seconds it clouded with anxiety, almost a foreboding as she met his eyes. Perhaps she saw his emotions there, as naked as he felt, and it was not acceptable to her. Instantly he was embarrassed. He had said nothing at all yet, and already he had begun badly.